Pioneering community health advocate honored

Lucy Candib’s dedication to public service recognized at Faculty Luncheon

By Ellie Castano

UMass Medical School Communications

March 28, 2011

Lucy Candib, MD, is a family physician, a medical educator, a community health pioneer and a feminist. Her dedication to all of these roles was evident at the Faculty Luncheon on March 16, where she was honored for her designation as one of this year’s UMass President’s Public Service Award recipients.

Noting that she is the first voluntary faculty member to receive this award, Dr. Candib, professor of family medicine & community health, thanked the institution for its vision in honoring her. She also recognized her staff, some of whom she brought to lunch with her, who make it possible for her to do her work at the federally funded Family Health Center of Worcester (FHCW), where she has practiced since she began her residency there in 1974.

Among Candib’s pioneering achievements is being one of the first practitioners in Worcester to introduce group medical visits in chronic care management, which have been conducted at FHCW for English- and Spanish-speaking patients with diabetes since 2001.

Lucy Candib, MD, (front, second from right) with members of her staff from the Queen Street Family Health Center of Worcester, where she has practiced community medicine for nearly 40 years.

The President’s Public Service Award is one of many honors Candib has received for her work. Among them is the 2006 A. Jane Fitzpatrick Community Service Award from the Worcester District Medical Society. She has published several books, including Medicine and the Family: A Feminist Perspective, and was one of 300 American women physicians featured in the National Library of Medicine’s “Changing the Face of Medicine” project in 2005.

In addition to thanking UMass for the honor, Candib took a moment to remind people that despite the progress that has been made in increasing access to health services, there is still a long way to go and there are still hard things that need to be talked about. “We still have uninsured patients, patients who can’t afford their medication because they lack documentation. We need more resources,” she said, adding, “People who are defined as other? Those are my people.”